POETS PLACE
END OF AN ERA
DECEMBER 2020
It’s hopefully the end to an era, and a hearty goodbye to a cruel and heartless administration that has brought down and ignored most of the humanistic values of an American nation. At least, in my book, that’s how I see it. I can only speak for myself and share the devastating effects this year has brought to my forefront. For me this year started off with hosting a bang up of a New Years Eve bash. This one was grander than the last. There were endless amounts of delicious food to gobble up, and a bottomless supply of libations to slosh down our happy throats. People were openly hugging and unabashedly sharing the love. A live punk band played loud and fierce and a live Rap artist danced and galloped around the room entertaining the crowd with his rap of soul and awe. The night came to fruition with a barrage of funk-a-licious gyrating dance music spun from the ultimate rock music connoisseur, DJ Reverend Dan. We didn’t know or had any clue of the dangers up ahead. This was our America. And we partied like it was 1999.
April 1, 2020 was my scheduled date of retirement. What a depressing entry into retirement after 30 plus years of service as a social worker. What was supposed to be a joyous well earned and exciting welcome to a new chapter in life, became a throttling thrust into a virulent world of a deadly virus, which catapulted the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting human beings, instigated by the deniers of the devastation and the refusal of scientific warnings to wear masks, and refrain from congregating without a safe distance. Such ignorance and stupidity made no sense to me.
On a positive note, creatively speaking I have been given the opportunity to host this wonderful monthly column- giving a platform for anyone, and everyone, poets and writers, alike, a forum in which to share their thoughts, wherever their free flowing mind took them. That’s been a good thing, right? Many of us have sought solace in creating art within a multitude of mediums. A copious amount of covid19 type themed artworks spawned, including racist inspired art and a host of voter bandwagons. I personally have produced an anti-racist Rap music video, partnering with Mary Cheung who is a monthly contributor to Poets Place. The video was inspired by the increased US administration’s blind support of acts of racism that has been allowed, enabled in this country. The video is titled ERACE-ISM. The act of erasing racism. Here’s the Youtube link. Check it out!
https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg
Now that our administration has turned blue, I am hoping to see a decline in the numbers of victims succumbing to this deadly virus and that we can hopefully see a diminishing change in our negative and disrespectful behaviors towards each other. Can we really embrace the 40% who denied reality and allowed a loser con man to run our country into the ground? We shall see.
Thanks to everyone, especially the editor in chief Cathi Milligan of the LAARTNEWS, who have contributed and supported POETS PLACE throughout this most devastating and challenging year!!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS Y’ALL!!!!
PEACE
Love,
Linda
ON CLOSER INSPECTION
By Linda Kaye
No matter how much you clean the dust particles remain
The mind races unable to sort out the constant barrage of toxic influences and stupid rhetoric as if bombs are exploding behind the retina of the eye
Creating images of death diseases religious fanatics beheadings weddings starving dogs and weeping children
Senseless behaviors flooding the world as we speak a wrath of dearth with loads of rhyme and incomprehensible reason
On closer inspection
look up to the sky and ponder
grab a blunt and get high on life's gifts and presents of love that surrounds abounds with infinite wisdom
the Dalai Lama-isms
"Silence is sometimes the best answer"
Reflections of experiences passed
on guilty pleasures unlocked treasures
Buried deep
underneath
trying to escape through the barriers of imperfections
Mirrored inspections that resemble that familiar face
smells of that place
the repression that holds tight
squeezes with all its might
Upon deeper inspection colors appear brighter when the fear peels away revealing untapped resources of gold and markings of scars that have actually healed but remain buried encrusted as a trusted friend although developmentally delayed and frightfully stayed
Oh the possibilities of new skin
A fresher look of perception unclouded visions
transcendence of soul
unconditional love and acceptance of self of humanity
respect of thy neighbor
Thy friend, nature, the earth.
WONDERLAND
By Richard Q Russeth
I can hardly abide this tiredness;
I could melt into the ground,
and leave no more trace behind
than does the wind rippling
across a Kansas wheat field.
Of the usual things, I am tired,
perhaps we have that in common.
Dear reader, I am especially tired
of this Wonderland year, now almost gone. Running a fever of 100, me, not the year,
though you would not be wrong to say
this year had a fever.
Here in my favorite stuffed green chair,
I drink ginger ale and nibble at saltine crackers,
my cure for everything ill,
and I read long books, it is another way out.
Outside my window, well, fall turning to winter
is a regular trope so I will skip it here.
The fever will pass, but the tiredness
has accumulated over long decades,
perhaps you know this burden as well,
it would surprise me if otherwise.
Wonderland tires those of us
who can still remember ourselves.
With age, remembering becomes
ever harder, and while those who forget
seem to go far in Wonderland,
they never learn not to answer
the wind that asks no questions,
and so they are speechless when the time comes.
Remember yourself as the wind does-
ripple across the world, but know
you will leave no trace,
and when the wind dies down,
there will be nothing more to say.
richard q russeth
A poet, photographer, baker and magician who lives in Ohio with his wife Charlotte.
"CURSED" - By Austin Musick ©2020
All you do is use me Never giving back You use me til there’s nothing left
and then toss me back to black
Or worse yet you infuse me With your dreams, your rage, your pain There I go again,
My heart it bleeds for you
All across this page You vanish, leave me empty It seems so are you in fact So you call me up, you’re hungry A vampire thirsty for his snack…
You fool me every moment Every word I just believe You fool my heart, you give me hope With your lies of loving me.
Or worse yet you infuse me
With your facades and fantasies
Til I close eyes,
And let you in again
To come back in and have your feast
No I cant say no
Even when I know
Its just another fling
You’ll come to kiss me once, Kiss me twice
Sometimes three times before you leave
Won't someone tell me how,
Do I let you go
When all the memories of you
Are now stitched in my soul? Tell me how to break this curse?
Why do I keep on loving you
When loving you,
Just hurts?
BIOGRAPHY
Unitsi Ai, also known as Austin Musick, is a singer, songwriter, poet, producer and actor based in Los Angeles, California. Originally from East Tennessee and born with a mixed heritage that consisted of Cherokee and Japanese, Unitsi Ai is raw, real, and soulful singer of stories inspired by life experience, as she combines poetry, rhythm, and melody in perfect unison.
Writing poetry since she was a child, Unitsi Ai took a few piano lessons at the age of nine but was chastised and discouraged from continuing after her teacher caught her playing by ear and memory rather than reading the sheet music. Nevertheless as an artist, she was determined to create, somehow, someway. She studied at the University of Tennessee and graduated with a B.A. in Theatre and a minor in Business. Ironically, she auditioned for and therefore was never cast in a musical. In fact, it took nearly 15 years before she would return to her roots of writing and poetry that would later provide the inspiration and springboard to her music career.
With gratitude,
Austin Musick
aka Unitsi Ai
https://www.unitsiai.online
https://www.austinmusick.com
NEW DAY
By Mary Cheung
10-3-20
6:40a.m.
New day,
U peek at the corner of the sky.
Slowly drawing back the blanket of night.
Testing the weight of darkness.
Letting light seep in slowly,
You let your warmth drip out into the cold.
The cold chilling death of night.
An inch at a time, your fingers creep;
Getting use to the temperature,
slowly.
It feels good...
It brings on a smile.
Your lips are tinged in lavender and blue from the cold..
At first a shy coyish smile.
The corners of your mouth move,
Warming up, inching, a bit at a time.
Until it widens into a smirk.
Deeper still the colors richen.
Violet and blue, scatters across your mouth.
Pumping into them orange and red.
Slowly your limbs awaken, coming to life.
Purple and mauve blossoms.
Lighting upon your face golden hues,
of bronze and amber.
I feel the warmth-ness spread.
Until it widens into a smile.
It seeps into my skin.
Crimson fades into gold than sand.
Last bits of blue all but disappears.
You wiggle your toes now,
Lighting up from within,
sparks of energy.
Your smile stretches further still.
Until I start to see your teeth.
The bright enamel of a blazing,
red,
sun.
It blinds me.
I can barely see.
But I feel it,
Awakening all my senses.
A boiling cauldron of red, bubbles.
You detangle from your sheets of darkness.
Fully committed to the open now.
The sudden shock of the cold;
You respond to it by blazing.
Blossoms and thrums with urgency.
Brighter and lighter still.
Dances across the sky in multitudes,
Amplified by the reflection,
In tall glass and metal bones jutting out from the ground.
Suddenly you are everywhere.
The whole world is wrapped in a repeating stamp,
that shouts out loud..
Wake up! This is the new day!
Stretch your limbs and rise!
I am here! Draw in my breath,
Waken and rise.
Mary Cheung is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.
SEASON OF GRATITUDE
By Ronald G. Carrillo (Days of Thanksgiving 2020)
The political winds of change in the red, white and blue air
It’s a national scare waiting the day after
The chair in the White House will be filled to further our history
Democracy is no longer a baby nor an adolescent
She is maturing and changing her national complexion
She drinks and takes drugs but doesn’t pay her bills
She is sinking in debt and addictions
She needs a citizens’ intervention
She won’t comply
She’s not shy but rather ambitious
As she stands on the world stage in the COVID winds of her shame
Her manifest destiny no longer definite
She wavers her power unstably in Liberty’s harbor
Her constitutional ardor in disguise
Now being revealed and contested before the world
All lives matter but some were put through genocide
Put in chains, divided from their children
Put in reservation camps of tears
Sent to internment camps and not recognized as true citizens
All their lives mattered and all their lives were put in tatters
Before America as she was birthed to empire from old world ideologies
This queen has no clothes and no clue
Her white male dominant side is being challenged
They refuse to share power or give an inch
They never will and their domination must die out
As a new seed of diversity will replenish her American soil
Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.
COFFEE WITH LA LUNA
By Lisa Roman
I woke up at 5. As always, to have coffee with the moon. She had danced all night, yet her energy was not exhausted. What radiance, exudes from a million-year-old goddess. No complaints of the past, only lighting the future. Small creatures snored, dreaming of things that animals do. Palm fronds swept against the walls of my home. A soothing alarm clock before the snooze button squirrel. La Luna drifted slowly, her own dreams entering mine and the unconscious thoughts of many. I felt her heart inside of mine. A reminder that all is well. Even when it isn’t. A glimpse in the eye of the universe. This moment. This year. Or decade. Life is OK she says. Look at the beauty that has been created during and after the eclipses. Nothing new under the sun. Other than light. Be well. Good morning to you all.
Lisa Roman is a native Californian, writer, artist, filmmaker and healer. Her background consists of set decorating and art direction for film during the 80's and 90's. She began doing pop up shows for various local artists during that time. Writing consists of poetry, humorist tales, scriptwriter and script doctoring. Her stories of magic and healing contain metaphysical essence. Entering 2021 as a film producer/writer with intent of continued expansion of spirit. Hope for a more sensitive future.
Thanks for joining us this last year! We will continue to power through and hopefully make this next year more loving and accepting.
With great hope for our future
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.
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